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Proposal for a consistent definition of aphantasia and hyperphantasia: A response to Lambert and Sibley (2022)

Authors:
Proposal for a consistent definition of aphantasia and hyperphantasia:
A response to Lambert and Sibley (2022)
Merlin Monzel1*, David Mitchell2, Fiona Macpherson3, Joel Pearson4, Adam Zeman5
1Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Germany
2Faculty of Philosophy, New College of the Humanities, London, UK
3Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow, UK
4School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
5Cognitive Neurology Research Group, University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK
* Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Merlin Monzel, Personality
Psychology and Biological Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Kaiser-Karl-Ring
9, 53111 Bonn, Germany. Email: merlin.monzel@uni-bonn-diff.de
We thank Lambert and Sibley (2022) for their thoughtful and thought-provoking response to
our commentary. Their response challenges us to reconsider our advocacy of unifying terms
for the study of extreme imagery aphantasia for the absence of imagery, hyperphantasia
for its super-abundance (Monzel et al., 2022). Although we are enthusiastic about diversity in
general, and the phenomena and scientific study of human mental diversity in particular, we
continue to believe that the science of imagery extremes will be best served by keeping its
terminology simple and avoiding a proliferation of potentially confusing, novel, terms.
We will consider their three arguments in turn:
i) Consistency in use of terms: It is true that the term ‘aphantasia’ was initially coined in the
context of visual imagery, but it soon became clear that a subjective reduction of imagery in
other senses was common in people with who lacked a mind’s eye. Zeman et al. (2020)
reported that 54.2% of aphantasic participants and 47.8% of hyperphantasic participants
described all modalities of imagery as faint or vivid respectively; Dawes et al. (2020) reported
multisensory aphantasia in 26% of those with visual aphantasia using the Questionnaire upon
Mental Imagery. We agree with Lambert and Sibley (2022) that both modality-specific and
modality-general processes are likely to be involved in sensory imagery: the use of a single
core term, aphantasia, to refer to the absence of imagery recognises the modality-general
processes while the addition of a qualifier ‘visual’, ‘auditory’ – highlights the particular sense
modality in question. Given the currency of the terms ‘aphantasia’ and ‘hyperphantasia,
particularly among those reporting these phenomena (see for example The Aphantasia
Network at ‘aphantasia.com), we feel that the introduction of multiple, novel, terms will not
benefit the community.
ii) Dissociations between varieties of imagery: We agree with Lambert and Sibley (2022) that
dissociations within participants between, for example, visual aphantasia and auditory
hyperphantasia, are of great interest, but we don’t see any internal contradiction in using
these terms. Given the possibility of the lack of imagery in one sense combined with its
presence in another, any term will require some elaboration, as, for example, when Lambert
and Sibley (2022) speak of ‘pure anauralia’ to refer to ‘anauralia in the context of
hyperphantasia or typical visual imagery’. We believe that use of ‘multisensory’ or ‘global’
aphantasia to refer to absence of sensory imagery across the board, and of e.g. ‘visual
aphantasia’ to refer specifically to the absence of the mind’s eye, offers the simplest and most
transparent terminology.
iii) Visuocentrism: We agree that visual imagery has received more attention than imagery in
other modalities, and that research on imagery in these other modalities should be
encouraged. This mirrors the state of perception research and can be traced back to the
greater range of brain areas and scientific methodologies dedicated to visual processing. We
disagree, however, that the encouragement of research on imagery in other modalities
requires a proliferation of terms. Just as the phrase ‘mental imagery’ itself refers to imagery
across the whole spectrum of sensory or experiential modalities, so the term ‘aphantasia’ can
be conveniently used to refer to its absence with qualification, in the case of both terms, as
required. It is a positive advantage of the term ‘aphantasia’ that it can be extended widely,
for example to the domains of touch (‘tactile aphantasia’), movement (‘motor aphantasia’)
and emotion (‘emotional aphantasia’) without the creation of a difficult new vocabulary and
the multiplication of terms.
Time will tell which terms survive, as future empirical work clarifies and enriches our
understanding of mental imagery extremes. For the present, we suggest the following
working definitions:
Aphantasia should be understood as the ‘absence or marked reduction of voluntary sensory
imagery’ where imagery is defined as ‘the quasi-sensory experience of items, typically in their
absence’. The definition specifies that ‘voluntary imagery’ is absent, or markedly reduced, in
view of the observation that many people with aphantasia report rare spontaneous ‘flashes’
of imagery in wakefulness (it is noteworthy, also, that many people with aphantasia report
sensory experience similar to wakeful imagery during dreams and in the hypnagogic state)
(Dawes et al., 2020; Zeman et al., 2020). Aphantasia can be acquired or lifelong: the latter
appears to be more common than the former, and often runs in families (Knowles et al., 2021;
Zeman et al., 2020). In acquired cases the aetiology may be neurological or psychiatric.
Aphantasia can be restricted to a single sense modality (e.g. ‘visual’ or ‘auditory aphantasia’)
or affect all sensory modalities (‘multisensory aphantasia’) (Dawes et al., 2020; Zeman et al.,
2020).
Hyperphantasia is the converse of aphantasia, the prefix ‘hyper’ denoting an unusually strong
manifestation of mental imagery (Zeman et al., 2020). People with hyperphantasia describe
imagery that is said to rival the vividness of perceptual experience. Further work is required
to characterise the nature of imagery in hyperphantasia. Like aphantasia, it may be restricted
to a single sense or involve several or all sensory modalities.
We thank Simner and Dance (2022), also, for their equally stimulating response. In brief reply
to their four key arguments: a) we acknowledge that as a coinage from an English word with
a Greek root, ‘dysikonesia’ is well-formed; b) as indicated above in response to Lambert and
Sibley's (2022) first argument, while the term ‘aphantasia’ indeed had a visual connotation in
our first paper (Zeman et al., 2015), it rapidly became clear that other senses were often
involved. The definition of aphantasia in our 2015 paper refers to ‘a condition of reduced or
absent voluntary imagery’, and we continue to believe that a broad, multimodal,
interpretation of the term is appropriate and useful; c) unlike ‘aphantasia’, which is not
directly tied to a particular sense modality, ‘audition colorée’ clearly is: the analogy with the
history of terms in synaesthesia is therefore at most partial; d) we fully endorse the final point
that aphantasia does not in the least imply an absence of imagination broadly construed:
there are now numerous examples of highly creative individuals with aphantasia (Zeman,
2021). We had not intended that the term should have this implication, and believe that the
advantages of its continued use outweigh the small risk of a mistaken inference.
References
Dawes, A. J., Keogh, R., Andrillon, T., & Pearson, J. (2020). A cognitive profile of multi-
sensory imagery, memory and dreaming in aphantasia. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 110.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65705-7
Knowles, L., Jones, K., & Zeman, A. (2021). #3112 Acquired aphantasia in 88 cases: a
preliminary report. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 92(8), A6.3-A7.
https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2021-bnpa.17
Lambert, A. J., & Sibley, C. G. (2022). On the importance of consistent terminology for
describing sensory imagery and its absence: A response to Monzel et al. (2022). Cortex.
Monzel, M., Mitchell, D., Macpherson, F., Pearson, J., & Zeman, A. (2022). Aphantasia,
dysikonesia, anauralia: call for a single term for the lack of mental imagery
Commentary on Dance et al. (2021) and Hinwar and Lambert (2021). Cortex.
Simner, J., & Dance, C. J. (2022). Dysikonesia or Aphantasia? Understanding the impact and
history of names. A reply to Monzel et al. (2022). Cortex, 152, 7476.
Zeman, A. (2021). Blind mind’s eye. American Scientist, 109(2), 110117.
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1511/2021.109.2.110
Zeman, A., Dewar, M., & Della Sala, S. (2015). Lives without imagery congenital
aphantasia. Cortex, 73, 378380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.05.019
Zeman, A., Milton, F., Della Sala, S., Dewar, M., Frayling, T., Gaddum, J., Hattersley, A.,
Heuerman-Williamson, B., Jones, K., MacKisack, M., & Winlove, C. (2020). Phantasia
the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. Cortex, 130,
426440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003
... Some studies do not emphasize ʺvisual imageryʺ when describing its absence, instead using the broader term ʺmental imageryʺ to refer to various modalities [4,13,16]. It is recommended to consistently use the term ʺaphantasiaʺ and specify the modality when necessary, such as ʺauditory aphantasiaʺ [17,18]. Concerning voluntariness, some researchers explicitly define aphantasia as the absence of voluntary visual imagery [1,3,4], while others do not specifically address this aspect [12,14]. ...
... The terminology in the field has recently been debated [17,18,49]. Other terms have been proposed to refer to the absence of different modalities of imagery. ...
... Dance et al. proposed the term "dysikonesia" to refer to multisensory or global aphantasia [47]. In this context, Monzel et al. argue that these new terms complicate the field, making communication less effective for researchers and the public, and therefore advocate for the use of the simple term "aphantasia," which is widely known [17,18]. When referring to the absence of a specific modality of imagery, it is straightforward to use modality-specific terms (e.g., "visual/auditory/multisensory aphantasia"). ...
Preprint
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People with aphantasia exhibit the inability to voluntarily generate or form mental imagery in their minds. Since the term “aphantasia” was proposed by Zeman et al. in 2015 to describe this, it has gained increasing attention from psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and clinicians. Previous studies have mainly focused on definition, prevalence, and measurement, its impacts on individuals’ cognitive and emotional processing, and theoretical frameworks synthesizing existing findings, which have contributed greatly to our understanding of aphantasia. However, there are still some debates regarding the conclusions derived from existing research and the theories that were constructed from various sources of evidence. Building upon existing endeavors, the current systematic review emphasizes that future research is much needed to refine definition and diagnosis of aphantasia, strengthen empirical investigations at behavioral and neural levels, and more importantly, develop or update theories. These multiple lines of efforts could lead to a deeper understanding of aphantasia and further guide researchers in future research directions.
... Mental imagery extends across multiple senses, including auditory, gustatory, olfactory, tactile and motor imagery. Aphantasia is characterised by the absence or reduction of voluntary sensory imagery [1,2]. While imagery impairments in aphantasia in the visual domain are relatively well documented [3][4][5][6], non-visual imagery abilities in aphantasia are much less well understood. ...
... Indeed, whilst many individuals report imagery deficits across multiple modalities, a small number also report selective deficits in just the visual [9] or auditory domains [10,11], suggestive of disassociations in imagery ability. This might indicate that there are aphantasia 'sub-types' and has led to a broader discussion of the definition and terminology used to refer to individuals with reduced imagery [1,11]. At present, we do not know if these self-reported deficits in other domains translate to reductions in behavioural performance on tasks that require imagery in those domains. ...
... Twitter, and on aphantasia forums on Reddit. Data acquisition occurred between September 2019-March 2020, during which, aphantasia was defined specifically as the absence of visual imagery [2,9] rather than an absence of sensory imagery [1]. We recruited participants on that basis to investigate the association of auditory and visual imagery deficits in individuals that would typically identify as being aphantasic (on the basis of their reduced visual imagery). ...
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Aphantasia is characterised by the inability to create mental images in one’s mind. Studies investigating impairments in imagery typically focus on the visual domain. However, it is possible to generate many different forms of imagery including imagined auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, motor, taste and other experiences. Recent studies show that individuals with aphantasia report a lack of imagery in modalities, other than vision, including audition. However, to date, no research has examined whether these reductions in self-reported auditory imagery are associated with decrements in tasks that require auditory imagery. Understanding the extent to which visual and auditory imagery deficits co-occur can help to better characterise the core deficits of aphantasia and provide an alternative perspective on theoretical debates on the extent to which imagery draws on modality-specific or modality-general processes. In the current study, individuals that self-identified as being aphantasic and matched control participants with typical imagery performed two tasks: a musical pitch-based imagery and voice-based categorisation task. The majority of participants with aphantasia self-reported significant deficits in both auditory and visual imagery. However, we did not find a concomitant decrease in performance on tasks which require auditory imagery, either in the full sample or only when considering those participants that reported significant deficits in both domains. These findings are discussed in relation to the mechanisms that might obscure observation of imagery deficits in auditory imagery tasks in people that report reduced auditory imagery.
... The terminology in the field has recently been debated [20,[134][135][136]. While the debate continues on whether the term "aphantasia" specifically refers to the absence of visual mental imagery or encompasses a deficit of all types of mental imagery (see Section 3), most current research on aphantasia focuses on visual imagery. ...
Article
Full-text available
People with aphantasia exhibit the inability to voluntarily generate or form mental imagery in their minds. Since the term "aphantasia" was proposed to describe this, it has gained increasing attention from psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and clinicians. Previous studies have mainly focused on the definition, prevalence, and measurement of aphantasia, its impacts on individuals' cognitive and emotional processing, and theoretical frameworks synthesizing existing findings, which have contributed greatly to our understanding of aphantasia. However, there are still some debates regarding the conclusions derived from existing research and the theories that were constructed from various sources of evidence. Building upon existing endeavors, this systematic review emphasizes that future research is much needed to refine the definition and diagnosis of aphantasia, strengthen empirical investigations at behavioral and neural levels, and, more importantly, develop or update theories. These multiple lines of efforts could lead to a deeper understanding of aphantasia and further guide researchers in future research directions.
... The terminology in the field has recently been debated [20,[134][135][136]. While the debate continues on whether the term "aphantasia" specifically refers to the absence of visual mental imagery or encompasses a deficit of all types of mental imagery (see section 3), most current research on aphantasia focuses on visual imagery. ...
Preprint
Full-text available
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... Future studies could also address the known variability in mental imagery abilities [see (Pearson, 2019)]. E.g., individuals with aphantasia, who show a reduction in or complete absence of mental imagery (Monzel et al., 2022), could be asked to complete the PIT. As people with aphantasia have recently been demonstrated to show deviating brain activity patterns , it would be intriguing to investigate a respective pattern in the PIT. ...
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... One way to address this conundrum is to study people with aphantasia (Zeman et al., 2015 ). Recent research defines aphantasia as a neuropsychological condition in which people experience a marked reduction or complete lack of voluntary sensory imagery (Monzel et al., 2022 ). This condition is associated with psychophysiological alterations, such as reduced imagery-induced pupil contraction (Kay et al., 2022 ) and reduced imagery-induced priming effects (Keogh & Pearson, 2018 ;Monzel, Keidel, et al., 2021 ). ...
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Aphantasia refers to reduced or absent visual imagery. While most of us can readily recall decade-old personal experiences (autobiographical memories, AM) with vivid mental images, there is a dearth of information about whether the loss of visual imagery in aphantasics affects their AM retrieval. The hippocampus is thought to be a crucial hub in a brain-wide network underlying AM. One important question is whether this network, especially the connectivity of the hippocampus, is altered in aphantasia. In the current study, we tested 14 congenital aphantasics and 16 demographically matched controls in an AM fMRI task to investigate how key brain regions (i.e. hippocampus and visual-perceptual cortices) interact with each other during AM re-experiencing. All participants were interviewed regarding their autobiographical memory to examine their episodic and semantic recall of specific events. Aphantasics reported more difficulties in recalling AM, were less confident about their memories, and described less internal and emotional details than controls. Neurally, aphantasics displayed decreased hippocampal and increased visual-perceptual cortex activation during AM retrieval compared to controls. In addition, controls showed strong negative functional connectivity between the hippocampus and the visual cortex during AM and resting-state functional connectivity between these two brain structures predicted better visualization skills. Our results indicate that visual mental imagery plays an important role in detail-rich vivid AM, and that this type of cognitive function is supported by the functional connection between the hippocampus and the visual-perceptual cortex.
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(optional) Recently, the term ‘aphantasia’ has become current in scientific and public discourse to denote the absence of mental imagery. However, new terms for aphantasia or its subgroups have recently been proposed, e.g. ‘dysikonesia’ or ‘anauralia’, which complicates the literature, research communication and understanding for the general public. Before further terms emerge, we advocate the consistent use of the term ‘aphantasia’ as it can be used flexibly and precisely, and is already widely known in the scientific community and among the general public.
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For most people, visual imagery is an innate feature of many of our internal experiences, and appears to play a critical role in supporting core cognitive processes. Some individuals, however, lack the ability to voluntarily generate visual imagery altogether – a condition termed “aphantasia”. Recent research suggests that aphantasia is a condition defined by the absence of visual imagery, rather than a lack of metacognitive awareness of internal visual imagery. Here we further illustrate a cognitive “fingerprint” of aphantasia, demonstrating that compared to control participants with imagery ability, aphantasic individuals report decreased imagery in other sensory domains, although not all report a complete lack of multi-sensory imagery. They also report less vivid and phenomenologically rich autobiographical memories and imagined future scenarios, suggesting a constructive role for visual imagery in representing episodic events. Interestingly, aphantasic individuals report fewer and qualitatively impoverished dreams compared to controls. However, spatial abilities appear unaffected, and aphantasic individuals do not appear to be considerably protected against all forms of trauma symptomatology in response to stressful life events. Collectively, these data suggest that imagery may be a normative representational tool for wider cognitive processes, highlighting the large inter-individual variability that characterises our internal mental representations.
Article
Aims For most of us, visual imagery is a fundamental feature of day-to-day subjective experience. It is thought to play multiple cognitive roles. ¹ However, there is widespread variation in the subjective intensity of visual imagery, ranging from extreme vividness to complete absence. The term aphantasia was coined recently to describe the latter, which is usually lifelong. While rarer, cases of acquired aphantasia can provide mechanistic insight. Isolated cases have long been reported, ² with some attempts at theoretical synthesis. 3 4 We give a preliminary description of 88 such cases identified from among ~14,000 people contacting us in the wake of publicity surrounding Aphantasia. Methods Cases were selected from individuals contacting us spontaneously reporting reduced or absent intensity of visual imagery. Contacts were asked to complete two measures of visual imagery, the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) and Imagery Questionnaire (IQ). ⁵ Results Cases were divided into those in with a strong probability of a neurological cause (n=39), a psychological cause (n=20) and those about which we cannot yet be confident (n=29). Functional aphantasia appears likely to account for some of the cases in the third category. The commonest precipitating events were head injury (n=19), affective disorder (n=17) and stroke (n=13). Other causes included surgery (postoperative) (n=7), drugs (n=6), infectious or inflammatory disease (n=3), neurodegenerative disease (n=3), and seizure disorders (n=2). For subjects completing the VVIQ (n=29), the mean score was 20.1/80 (range 16-32,) indicating marked reduction of imagery vividness. Localizable lesions were predominantly right sided (n=6) and occurred in posterior cortical areas, particularly occipital and parietal, as well as two cases associated with damage to temporal cortex. Some cases reported other impairments, including impaired memory (n=12), prosopagnosia (n=5) and navigational difficulties (n=2). Of cases who reported on their dreams (n=28), around half had lost visual dreaming, a third had preserved visual dreaming and the remainder had visual dreaming of reduced intensity. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the largest reported case series of acquired loss of visual imagery. Both neurological and psychological disorders can be responsible for acquired aphantasia. Our series includes cases of probable functional aphantasia. Further detailed analysis of these cases is required. References Pearson. Nat. Rev. Neurosci . 2019;20:624634. Zago, et al. Cognit . Neuropsychiatry 2011;16:481504. Farah. Cognition 1984;18:245272. Bartolomeo. Cortex 2002;38:357378. Zeman, et al. Cortex 2020;130:426440.
Article
Visual imagery typically enables us to see absent items in the mind’s eye. It plays a role in memory, day-dreaming and creativity. Since coining the terms aphantasia and hyperphantasia to describe the absence and abundance of visual imagery, we have been contacted by many thousands of people with extreme imagery abilities. Questionnaire data from 2000 participants with aphantasia and 200 with hyperphantasia indicate that aphantasia is associated with scientific and mathematical occupations, whereas hyperphantasia is associated with ‘creative’ professions. Participants with aphantasia report an elevated rate of difficulty with face recognition and autobiographical memory, whereas participants with hyperphantasia report an elevated rate of synaesthesia. Around half those with aphantasia describe an absence of wakeful imagery in all sense modalities, while a majority dream visually. Aphantasia appears to run within families more often than would be expected by chance. Aphantasia and hyperphantasia appear to be widespread but neglected features of human experience with informative psychological associations.